H4:HDMod - Current Status

In july 2016 news of a HD mod for H4 was announced.A few days before the announcement a teaser-puzzle was posted as Picture-Of-The-Day displaying the adventure map in 16:9 ratio. Since then we've been trying to keep up with development of the project. Sadly not many updates have followed the announcement from the Equilibris team, but that hasn't prevented the community from keeping the discussion alive.

HDMod - Game Settings and new resolutions

Fans are asking for the lastest news about the Equilibris HD mod. Is the project still alive? What's the status?

Rumors, on the Russian forum, says that project leader Dalai has traveled to Europe, which might explain his absense - althought Internet is somewhat widely accesable in most parts of Europe (but mind that's just a rumor)..

Meanwhile we can confirm that Equi programmer Max is still working on implementing the new UI for the HD Mod and although news has been somewhat scarce since the announcement of the HD Mod, progression has been made.

Below you can see the original 1024x768 townscreen, for comparison you can drag each of the images below, into your browser window to view them in full scale:

1024x768 original townscreen

This early version, posted at the announcement, displays a large Equilibris logo in the lower left corner (as well as mirrored edges ). The Equilibris team were asking artists for help, in creating better looking townscreen.

Equilibris HDMod - Early Screenshot

Those of you, who have followed the announcement of the HD Mod, and the discussions that followed, might already know that a full set of new enlarged Town Screens has been made. To our best knowledge these has all been implemented to the game and should be fully functional.

Next step was to rearrange all of the buildings to match the enlarged town screen (notice the Wrestling Pits and the Blacksmith on the right).

A screenshot was posted, displaying a fully build town in HD 1920x1080 with the new enlarged townscreen background.

Equilibris HDMod - fully build townscreen with rearranged buildings

Although pleased with the looks of the enlarged townscreens, the Equilibris team asked the community for ideas, as to what to put in the large block in the lower left corner. Displaying just the Equilibris logo seemed to have been the easy, but somewhat not very imaginate solution.

Almost 2 years should pass before other solutions were suggested. All suggestions were posted, and community members shared their votes.

Current status as we know of, is that all of the new town screens, need to be further transformed into versions like this (note that the enlarged shipyard is a suggested solution, but may turn out otherwise):

Equilibris HDMod - Adjusted Townscreen UI

What about the combat screens?Community members have long been speculating whether it might be window-in-window, similar to the solutions seen in H3 HD, but little info about this matter has been posted since Dalai commented on possible solutions.But barely into 2019, we rechieved this info:"The battle screen, as I recall, is simply scaled to a height. The 4:3 ratio is preserved, so black stripes are left around the edges. If you use the entire available screen under the battlefield, you get a complete different game."

Well, can't you tell us more?Beside what has been posted so far of screenshots and the likes, we can sum up a few additional infos:

The team is said to be working on implementing 2 different resolutions ratios, main one being 16*9 or 1920*1080.

To our knowledge the main menu still needs to somehow be made to fit the larger format. There has been talk about new main menu, but so far nothing has been presented.

Equilibris programmer Max, has for some time been challenged by the lack of a monitor big enough, to display the HD ratio, which has delayed the project for some months, but he should be back on track, ready to continue work on the HD mod.

This most likely also means that they're not yet ready to ask the public for help, in regards to beta test the mod.